Initially, Fenzel was said to have been standing up a 5,000-strong force trained and equipped by the United States. The objective of Fenzel’s force is to sharply curtail IDF operations in Judea and Samaria, setting the stage for full Palestinian control of the West Bank under American supervision.

Like its Lebanese counterpart, the PAF has been folded into the U.S. counterterrorism framework. Being designated a U.S. counterterrorism partner force is code for both guaranteed perpetual American investment and reassurance to Iran that the force will safeguard, not subvert, Tehran’s realm. The PAF’s job is not to go after Iranian forces, such as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but to act as an auxiliary force and, by virtue of American sponsorship, as a constraint on IDF activity.

Since Oct. 7, Washington’s plans for the PAF have gone into overdrive. Like the LAF up north, the PAF features prominently in Team Obama-Biden’s “Day After” plan—that is, the formalization of the Palestinian Special Province, with its dual jurisdictions (or kaza, in keeping with Ottoman terminology). Within a couple of months since Oct. 7, the administration was already putting out talkers about the need to “strengthen” and “beef up” Fenzel’s nascent PAF. After a meeting between Fenzel and Palestinian Authority Intelligence Chief Majed Faraj in late 2023, chatter about guaranteeing funding (including salaries) for the force started to pop up in D.C.—again, following the LAF template. It’s said that during a meeting between Fenzel and the commander of the PA’s National Security Forces, Nidal Abu Dukhan, they also discussed U.S. salaries for the PAF.

In Lebanon, the Obama-Biden team has already deployed American trainers and special forces personnel. In fact, the U.S. military routinely docks naval vessels in Lebanese ports and uses an airstrip in the Hezbollah-controlled Bekaa to land airlifts of equipment for the LAF—turning all of these places into infrastructure that is ostensibly part of America’s global counterterrorism efforts.

In Gaza, the U.S.-made pier was intended to fulfill a related function and convey a similar signal. Though it might have been swept away by the sea and had to be temporarily relocated to avoid being washed out to sea again before it was finally decommissioned after failing to deliver the humanitarian supply surge that was its supposed function, the salient point is the persistence of the Obama-Biden team in rebuilding it over two months, at a cost of over a quarter of a billion in taxpayer money. In other words, at every level, administration messaging is persistently laying the groundwork for an ever-deepening level of direct management in the Palestine Special Province. In addition to Fenzel, the Obama-Biden team is said to be considering appointing a U.S. official to serve as the top civilian adviser who would be “based in the region” and would “work closely with the commanding officer” of a postwar security force in Gaza (which the State Department prefers to describe as a “gendarmerie”).

According to a recent report, the Biden administration “is coalescing around plans for an interim ‘Palestinian Council’ to govern Gaza and a security coalition in which the U.S. military will play a major role.” It’s perhaps a little on the nose, within the scope of the Ottoman analogy, for the United States to set up an “administrative council” for the Palestine mutasarrifate, but there it is. As with the “government of Lebanon,” the point of a council, whether it’s packed with notables or “technocrats,” is to provide cover for the Iranian clients who will continue to wield real power, propping up the American sick man of the Middle East.

In the Lebanese Special Province, the United States has assembled a consultative group with the ambassadors of four other nations (France, Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) to manage the selection of a new “president”—a post that’s been vacant since 2022. The administration’s public pronouncements emphasize the importance of a new “president” for Lebanon. In reality, the administration’s point man on Lebanon, Special Adviser Hochstein, deals with Hezbollah through its ally, Shiite militia leader and “Speaker of Parliament,” Nabih Berri, among other cutouts, like former Director of General Security Abbas Ibrahim. The Lebanese government is a facade, an official channel to funnel U.S. aid and to cover for the fact that the administration is dealing as directly as possible with Hezbollah.

In fact, that’s precisely what the administration did in 2022 when it imposed its maritime boundary agreement, which in reality functioned as an official American designation of the Special Province of Lebanon as a U.S. protectorate, thereby discouraging Israeli military operations in that territory. Hochstein, then as now, talked as directly as he could with Hezbollah and advanced Iran’s interests, which he then pressed a client minority prime minister in Israel to accept in their entirety. One measure of the authority of this designation is that Israeli operations in Lebanon still haven’t happened, despite the “loss of sovereignty” declared by the U.S. secretary of state—who apparently gets to declare such things without the Israelis feeling able to say “boo.” Even after the Majdal Shams slaughter, Hochstein reportedly told Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that the United States opposed a strike on Beirut.

Intensified U.S. meddling in Israeli domestic affairs as well as the direct interference in Israel’s foreign and security policy since the maritime deal was sealed provide insight into where the state of Israel fits in the Obama-Biden team’s regional architecture alongside the joint U.S.-Iranian special provinces. Israel is a troublesome client, to be managed when possible by the U.S.-aligned Herodian faction inside the country, combined with external pressure like having Israel’s prime minister declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court.

In the same vein, Washington’s framing of Iran’s April 13 direct missile and drone attack against Israel is instructive. Israel was constrained from retaliating against the Iranians. Instead, the United States made clear that the only legitimate defensive arrangement is one by the American-led integrated regional missile defense, which will effectively calibrate the “hit” that Israel is required to take, while ruling out of bounds any Israeli response to being attacked. That is to say, not only would Israel be denied the autonomous decision-making to go on the offensive, but also, even its defense would be contingent on what the United States deemed acceptable. Accordingly, following Hezbollah’s rocket attack on Majdal Shams, the administration reportedly listed targets in Lebanon that it considers to be out of bounds for Israel, including Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The Obama team sees Jewish sovereignty as a destabilizing factor in the regional arrangement with Iran, which therefore must be constrained, if not outright abolished. To fit in Obama’s “regional integration” vision, Israel has to be reduced to a province, with no sovereign control over its defense policy with regard to the Iranians and their holdings in the U.S.-managed regional architecture, in which you’ll have the subdivision, or kaza, of Gaza and the kaza of the West Bank united within a new mutasarrifate of Palestine. Jerusalem will be a special jurisdiction shared with Israel under international supervision. The Lebanon mutasarrifate will be in the north, and the Israel sanjak (in keeping with Ottoman terminology), minus Jerusalem, in the middle. Within these units, “administrative councils” will be the official governing bodies, which we will refer to as “governments” while actual power resides elsewhere.

In the Lebanon mutasarrifate Hezbollah, as Iran’s local mutasarrif, is the recognized ruler that the United States deals with through the administrative council. In the Palestine mutasarrifate, a council including notables, clans, bedouins, technocrats, and the PA will serve the same function, as Hamas retains its position as the de facto authority and representative of Iran. The U.S. envoy to the Palestine mutasarrifate will manage the former. In the Israel sanjak, a “unity government” and a strong judicial council will serve as the American clients answering to the U.S. proconsul and the security coordinator.

Any 19th-century Ottoman administrator, or French or British Middle East diplomat, would look at a map of these arrangements and smile at how familiar they are. Local rulers and potentates who are not familiar with Ottoman maps and who believe themselves to be the elected leaders of sovereign nations may have a surprise coming, though.